Solitaire and Brahms

by Sarah Dreher

  Fran shuddered. "That actually happened to a woman I knew in college. I'd rather be shut out, thank you. Are you serious?"

  "I suspect maybe I am." She contemplated the fire: "It seems so hard, Fran. Being you. Being different. Isn't there anything that makes up for all the unhappiness?"

  "Yeah," Fran said. "Women." She stood up and stretched. “I've had enough of my angst for one night. And you seem reluctant to talk about yours."

  Shelby felt caught and a little embarrassed. "I guess I am."

  "Then let's get into our pajamas and I'll teach you to play gin rummy."

  She lay silently and listened for the night sounds. The dull flutter of leaves where a bird stirred. Water dripping. The quick scratching of a small animal scurrying across the forest floor. A night hawk called once and fell silent. She tried to hear the trees breathing, tried to hear a breeze. But it was still. A heavy, oppressive stillness that made her want to shout, to break it, but sapped her of the energy.

  In movies, the night was portrayed as uneasy, filled with animal shrieks and stealthy creeping sounds and buzzing insects. They had it all wrong. It was the silence that was uneasy. The silence was like a held breath.

  Her sleeping bag felt vaguely damp. Humidity. Rain tomorrow, she thought. She pushed back the top layer, leaving only her feet covered. The wilted cotton of her pajamas had an oily feel. Not terrible, but unpleasant.

  The dusty odor of tent canvas hung heavily in the air.

  Beside her, Fran's breathing was shallow. If she slept, it wasn't deeply. Shelby had the feeling she wasn't sleeping, and looked over at her. Fran lay on her back, arms stiffly at her sides, eyes closed against the faint light from the moon. The shadows of a frown cut furrows in her forehead. She looked frightened, or troubled; it was hard to tell in the ashy light.

  Shelby reached over and took her hand. Fran wrapped her fingers around Shelby's thumb, lightly. Shelby looked up at the tent roof and thought, I'm holding her hand. I'm holding Fran's hand and it was all my idea and she didn't pull away. I'm holding Fran's hand, and she's a lesbian. I'm holding a lesbian's hand.

  I'm holding hands with a lesbian.

  She waited, probing for what she might feel. Disgust, fear, withdrawal. But her body felt warm, and her heart felt safe, and her busy-body mind, with all its nettling and nagging, had gone somewhere it couldn't bother her.

  "Tell me one thing," Fran said into the darkness. "How much of what you do is because it's expected?"

  "Most of it."

  Fran was silent for a long time. "What's wrong with this picture?" she said at last.

  "I'm tired of me. Good night." Shelby gave Fran's hand a squeeze, and closed her eyes.

  She came fully awake out of a dream. She didn't remember any details. Familiar feelings of comfort and apprehension were still there. A clear thought followed them.

  She rolled onto her side and shook Fran by the shoulder.

  "What?" Fran said.

  The tent was filled with a gray light, the steely glow of pre-dawn.

  "I have to tell you something."

  Fran wriggled to a sitting position. She rubbed her eyes. "Go ahead."

  Shelby took a deep breath. "I don't think I want to get married."

  Fran stared at her in amazement. "You woke me up to tell me that?"

  "Yeah."

  She flopped back onto the sleeping bag and groaned. "Shelby, I've known that as long as I've known you. What time is it?"

  Shelby ignored her. "But that's it. That's what's wrong with this picture. I don't think I want to get married."

  Fran pushed herself up again. "You sound awfully cheerful about it."

  "I finally understand."

  "I think we're awake for good," Fran muttered. She pulled on a pair of shorts over the boxer shorts she slept in. "I better make coffee."

  Shelby's euphoria lasted another two seconds. "Fran!" she shouted. "What do I do now?”

  "Don't panic. Stay loose. Have coffee."

  She changed into her shorts and t-shirt, crammed her feet into the ratty sneakers, and spread both their sleeping bags out to air.

  She stumbled her way out of the tent.

  "Just because I don't want to do it doesn't mean I have to not do it, does it?"

  "No, it doesn't," Fran said, "but you might want to start thinking along those lines."

  The enormity of it all stifled her. "Call it off, explain, deal with my family, my friends..." Shelby kneaded her face. "You should have let me die."

  "Sorry," Fran said. "That's not an option." She came over to Shelby and took her by the shoulder and led her to the sitting log. "Look, you don't have to do everything right now. In fact, you don't have to do anything right now. Sit with it, and if you want to talk, I'm here."

  "I can't believe what a mess this is."

  Fran looked down at her. "It's a mess. But it's not World War III. Relax, Shelby. We're out here in the middle of the woods, nobody knows where you are, there's no telephone, so catch your breath. You don't have to go off half-cocked.”

  "You're right," Shelby said with a firm and insincere nod. "Absolutely." There was plenty of time to figure out what to do. Plenty of time to do it. The wedding wasn't until Easter, for crying out loud. They hadn't even sent the invitations, or fitted the bridesmaids' dresses, or...

  Maybe by Easter she'd be used to the idea.

  Get used to it? Get used to it? There was no way she was going to get used to marriage.

  And no way she could get out of it.

  "Shelby," Fran said sharply. She stood in front of her with a tin plate of eggs and bacon and tomatoes. "Eat." She handed it to her, and put the mug of coffee on the ground beside her, and sat down on the log with her own breakfast. “Once you come out of your coma, you're not going to run away, are you?"

  "Maybe I could," she said hopefully.

  "You'd hate yourself for the rest of your life." Fran salted and peppered her eggs. "Believe me. I know you. Eat."

  She forced herself to swallow a forkful of scrambled eggs. Fran made the best scrambled eggs in the world. These tasted like talcum powder.

  "Bacon next," Fran said.

  That was a little better.

  "Coffee."

  She'd have to be dead not to taste that. "OK," she said, "I think I'm capable of feeding myself now."

  "How about rational thought? Are you capable of that?"

  "Not yet."

  Fran smiled. "Look, Shelby..."

  It made her calmer to hear Fran say her name.

  "There's nothing going on here that you have to go through alone. I'm with you. Whatever it takes."

  Nobody'd ever said anything like that to her before. It made a salty lump in the back of her throat.

  "That's a promise,” Fran said.

  Shelby struggled not to say something flippant, like "then be my maid of honor." The way she felt wasn't flippant. It was terrifyingly serious.

  She was accustomed to going it alone. She was the doer, the care-taker, the one who waded in and straightened out the mess. Or tried to. There'd been more than a few failures along the way. Failures that had left her helpless and angry, failures that had shown her she could never do it right.

  She shook herself.

  "What?" Fran asked.

  "Sorry. I was thinking. About my failures."

  "Failures." Fran drew a circle in the dust. "Like what?"

  "Well, like that friend in college that went strange. I never could do anything about that. I tried, but I couldn't."

  Fran placed her plate on the ground and folded her hands and leaned her elbows on her knees. "Did it ever occur to you,” she asked, “that she might have been in love with you?”

  “What?” But it had occurred to her, not in a flash of understanding, but in a niggling, nagging kind of way. Like mice in the attic. Mice she couldn't get rid of and tried to ignore, except sometimes their little mouse claws ticked across her dreams. "Everything doesn't have to be about love," she said irritably. "People d
o things, lots of things, all the time, for years at a time, that have absolutely nothing to do with love."

  "This is true."

  "Even marriage doesn't have to be about love."

  Fran simply raised one eyebrow.

  It made her want to throw something at her. "God," she said, "is that all you think about, love?"

  "I'm sorry I upset you."

  "You didn't upset me, it annoys me. You perseverate on that subject, and it's really, really boring."

  “I'm sorry,” Fran said again.

  The conversation made her skin feel sticky, as if something slimy and green and unpleasant had attached itself to her. Something that lived in ponds. Something that had nothing to do with her but was going along creating new and unattractive life forms just under her skin.

  She brushed at her forearms as if she could brush it off.

  “Do you have bugs on you?”

  "I thought I did," she covered. "Ants or spiders, I don't know."

  "Find any?"

  "Nope."

  "Must have been the conversation, then." Fran grinned and held her hands up protectively. "Don't hit me."

  "You drive me crazy," Shelby said.

  "That's not a drive, it's a short putt."

  What was she doing? She didn't want to fight with Fran. Fran hadn't done anything. "I apologize for being so touchy."

  "You have every right, I'm the one who's perseverating," Fran said. “Mea culpa.” She crossed herself.

  Shelby got up and poured another mug of coffee. "Are you Catholic?" She took Fran's mug and filled it.

  "Good God, no! Do you know what the Church says about people like me?"

  "People like you." Shelby straddled the log. "Meaning lesbians."

  Fran grimaced. "You're certainly fond of that word."

  "I keep testing myself. To see if I can say it. To see if it scares me." She glanced over at Fran. "I don't mean you scare me. You don't. And it doesn't. But the word..."

  "Don't explain to me," Fran said. "You know how I am about it."

  "You do get a little peculiar on the subject."

  "You mean 'queer' on the subject."

  Shelby shrugged. "Peculiar, queer. It doesn't matter. But you sure are cute when you're embarrassed."

  Fran covered her head with her arms.

  "I shouldn't have said that." Shelby touched her shoulder.

  "Can we just start the day over?" Fran mumbled.

  "I doubt it."

  "I'm still half asleep. How can I follow your twists and turns when I'm half asleep?" Fran looked at her. "We were talking about you."

  "An unfortunate choice of topics."

  "And the marriage."

  "Even more unfortunate."

  "Shelby..."

  She ran her hand through the front of her hair. "I know, I'm impossible." This was going to be harder than she'd realized. She knew she wanted to be honest with Fran, with herself, that much was obvious. What she didn't know was if she'd be able to. Or if her wonderful jet-age plastic protective shield had become welded to her.

  "I just don't know how I feel," she said. "I'm all mixed up about this."

  "Relax," Fran said. "Rome wasn't built in a day."

  Shelby had declared rest hour. Fran could sleep, or read, or write postcards home or do woodland crafts, but there was to be no talking. The army had been fine, she was sure, and Fran had learned many useful things no doubt, but Shelby wanted her to see a little of what a real summer camp was like when you weren't getting ready for war. The good parts. The quiet, the aroma of pine and dark earth. The restfulness and sense that there was all the time in the world and nothing really terrible could happen. She'd felt those things at camp, even through the misery and homesickness and loneliness. They had nothing to do with the people who were there. The quiet and the trees and the sky and clouds and sparkling lake were there. Rest hour had been one of the magic times at camp, when everything was silent except the breeze, and she could lie on her cot and smell the rough pine boards the cabin was built of, and daydream that some day she and a friend would have a magic place like this.

  She glanced over at Fran. She'd been reading and had gone to sleep, her book open on her chest, rising and falling with her breath. Shelby looked at her, just looked at her, and everything went warm inside her.

  If she went ahead with the wedding... They wouldn't be like this again. Most of the things she did, she'd do with Ray. Most of her friendships would be with couples.

  Of course, if Fran happened to find her knight in shining armor—in her case it would be a princess, of course—then she'd be part of a couple.

  Though that would hardly qualify her for membership in the country club.

  Fran opened her eyes, leaned over to her knapsack and started rummaging through it. She found pencil and paper. "I don't know what you're thinking about," she wrote, "but it's keeping me awake."

  Shelby smiled and mouthed "Sorry." She slipped into her sneakers and left the tent.

  She sat on the log by the cold ashes of their campfire. The day was sticky, the humidity still building, the edges of things watery and blurred. The kind of day when you can barely stand the feel of your own skin. Tonight would be muggy, too, but chilly. Her sleeping bag would feel as if it had been washed and not quite dried. Drops of dew would form on the tips of pine needles and drip, rhythmically, all night.

  Even the children playing on the beach by the lake were subdued as the heat pressed down and made them tired and whiney. Many of the mothers were in various stages of pregnancy.

  Don't laugh, she reminded herself. Someday that could be you trying to wallow your way out of a beach chair with a magazine in one hand and a screaming child in the other.

  She couldn't imagine it.

  A woman was jogging on the road by the lake. In the heat. Out of her mind.

  She thought she must be seeing things, but she wasn't. It was Penny, coming toward their tent. She stopped, wide-eyed, when she spotted Shelby.

  "Hi," Shelby said.

  Penny trotted up to her. "I don't believe this. I thought you were back at the office, slaving over a hot manuscript."

  "I was," Shelby said, feeling only a little guilty. "But I decided I could slave just as well outdoors. What about yourself?"

  "Getting some exercise." Penny ran a few steps in place. "I wanted real air for a change. You know, full of mold spores and pollen."

  Shelby laughed. "Wait a couple of weeks. The ragweed will be at the height of loveliness."

  "I still can't believe it. Running into you all the way out here. Is this neat, or what?"

  She wasn't quite sure she thought it was neat, but said it was. "Want a cup of coffee or anything?"

  "No, thanks. I..." Penny glanced around, spotted the two coffee mugs drying on the fireplace. "Yeah, heck, why not?"

  "It's terrible coffee," Shelby said as she poured her some. "But it's hot and wards off sleep. Just the thing for slaving."

  "I see." Penny took the mug, tasted it, grimaced. "God! Is Jean with you or something?"

  "She's doing the bridesmaid thing with Libby. That's Fran's cooking magic."

  A little smile tickled the corners of Penny's mouth. It made Shelby uncomfortable.

  "So where is she?"

  "In the tent. Having a nap."

  "Oops!" Penny covered her mouth with her hand. Irrelevantly, Shelby noticed she was wearing nail polish. "Better not wake her," Penny whispered.

  "It's all right." Shelby raised her voice. "Jarvis, front and center."

  Fran poked her head out through the tent flap, "Hi, Penny."

  "Hello," Penny said. "I was enjoying some of your fabulous coffee."

  "Don't let me interrupt." Fran straddled the sitting log. She was wearing shorts, a tee-shirt, and no shoes or bra. Not that she needed a bra. Fran was, as she herself said, as flat as a pond.

  She saw Penny notice, and quickly look away.

  "So you guys are playing hooky."

  "Not exactly," Shelby
said. "I brought my work with me."

  Behind Penny's back, Fran grinned.

  "It's too nice out to work," Penny said.

  "That's why I'm not working at the moment."

  There was a brief, not entirely comfortable moment of silence.

  "So," Penny asked, "what's happening?"

  Fran smiled. "Not much."

  "That's how it is in the woods," Shelby said. "Not much happens."

  "Hardly anything at all," Fran said. "At least not at breakneck speed. Time doesn't fly out here, it oozes."

  Penny sipped her coffee. Fran got up and poured herself a mug, took a swallow, shuddered the way she always did, and sat down.

  "Have you gotten to my stuff yet?" Penny asked Shelby. Her voice had an edge.

  Shelby nodded. She wished she hadn't read Penny's submissions, or had thought to lie. It was going to be another of those conversations.

  "What did you think?"

  "I have to go over them again..."

  "Just off the top of your head."

  “If you don't mind," Shelby said, "I'd rather talk about it back at the office. We need to set some time aside to go over them in detail, so we're both thinking in the same direction."

  "I take it that means you didn't like my choices."

  "It doesn't mean that. It means we need to talk about it at work."

  Penny's lower lip jutted out just a bit. "I thought this was a working trip."

  "It is."

  "So I'm work, aren't I?"

  You certainly are, Shelby thought, and smiled a little at her own joke. She widened her smile to a semblance of affection. "Not exactly, Penny."

  "Ah, work," Fran said cheerily. "Can't live with it, can't live without it. Let's play gin."

  "She wants to play gin," Shelby explained, "because I've never played before last night, and she thinks she can beat me for the twenty-fifth consecutive time."

  "If we had a fourth," Penny said, "we could play bridge."

  "Me, playing bridge, is a terrible sight," Fran said. "I think you might be too young for it."

  Penny ignored her. "If there's a problem about those stories," she said to Shelby, "we could talk about it now."

  "Not now," Shelby said firmly. "I don't have them with me, and I'd have to refer…"

  "I thought you brought your work."